UND airplane crash cause report released

According to a National Transportation Safety Board (NTSB) probable cause report published last week, "deteriorating meteorological conditions" and "lack of flying experience" were the cause of a crash that killed UND students Jacob Rueth and Jacob Sundblad on Dec. 1, 2006.

The accident, which occurred just outside of Crookston, Minn., left many UND students in mourning after the two young commercial aviation students lost their lives.

The plane was found in a harvested farm field about one mile southwest of Crookston Municipal Airport after an emergency locater transmitter (ELT) was detected around 1:40 a.m. by the Air Force Rescue Coordination Center; the plane was found around 3 a.m. after a brief ground search.

According to the report, which was released late last week, an eyewitness saw the two pilots pull the aircraft out of the hangar around 6 p.m.

However, the NTSB report stated that there was moderate snowfall, low ceilings and visibility was reduced to one statute mile around the time of the departure and accident.

The report narrative stated that the flight was operating in instrument meteorological conditions without a filed flight plan. In other words, the pilots took off in weather conditions that required them to rely on their instruments to fly.

However, Rueth, who was the pilot in command, had no documented actual flight experience in instrument conditions and had only gone through 4.6 hours of simulated instrument flight time. Rueth had accumulated 102.5 total hours of flight time, 30 hours of which were in a Cessna 172 airplane, which was the type that they were flying that night.

"It is likely that the non-instrument rated private pilot's decision to take off in deteriorating weather conditions was due to his lack of flying experience," the report said. "Once he took off into the instrument meteorological conditions, he became spatially disoriented and was unable to maintain control of the airplane."

Director of Aviation Safety for the John D. Odegard School of Aerospace Sciences Dana Siewert stated, "We weren't operating the night of the accident because of the weather. The weather did not meet the minimums that we have already established and the criteria we have in place for operating our aircraft in inclement weather."

While Siewert stressed that he was not at Crookston during the time of the accident, the weather conditions in Grand Forks, according to the National Weather Service Climate Data Report for Dec. 1, were similar to Crookston with low visibility and ceilings as well as snow and blowing snow.

Risk management

The NTSB report highlighted Rueth's "lack of flying experience" for the probable reason for why he made the decision to take off in "deteriorating meteorological conditions." According to several flight students, UND's flight program puts a lot of emphasis on not flying in inclement weather.

"It is lesson number one for us and for most people," said Bruce Smith, dean of the John D. Odegard School of Aerospace Sciences. "We start very early in teaching pilots what conditions they can and cannot fly in."

In addition to teaching students early on in their flying career, the school itself has set up stringent minimum standards for which students are allowed to fly in.

"We already have minimum standards that are already in place and have been for a number of years," said Siewert. "We already put a lot of emphasis on being safe while flying and weather is a major factor when determining whether or not to fly." Siewert added that the school puts a lot of emphasis on risk management.

"In the policies and procedures we already have, there are restrictions and minimums … we are always putting emphasis on risk assessment and certainly weather is a risk element and it will continue to be."

Determining a cause

Since the time of the accident on Dec. 1, 2006, the National Transportation Safety Board (NTSB) has been working on determining the cause of the accident. As with every aviation-related accident, the NTSB works with a diverse team of individuals to come up with a probable cause for why the airplane went down.

"Basically, we are notified of an accident by the FAA or the National Response Center or some other entity," said Keith Holloway, public affairs officer for the NTSB. "Once we do arrive on scene, the investigators begin documenting the wreckage; we look at the nose, the two wings and the tail …"

Investigators will look at whether or not there were fractures to the airframe and examine the instruments and see what they may have been reading before the aircraft impacted the ground.

"Because it was a small aircraft," Holloway continued, "we don't have the black box or anything, so we don't have that extra bit of information that we might have with larger aircraft."

Once the on-scene investigation is complete, investigators take that information, as well as eyewitness reports and air traffic control transcripts then they analyze the accident in cooperation with the FAA, engine manufacturers and the maker of the airplane itself.

According to an NTSB investigator, the team then compiles a factual report which is then sent to the NTSB headquarters in Washington where a 5-member board determines the probable cause of the accident.

The report found no apparent mechanical or structural problems with the aircraft and there were no apparent medical or drug related issues with either pilot.

Rueth, 18, was from Orland Park, Ill., and Sundblad, 19, was from Annandale, Minn.